Rice Group to Look at IT at Universities

A new group at Rice hopes to establish a baseline for how information technology is being used at universities throughout the United States.

Known as ETRAC (Educational Technology Research and Assessment Cooperative), the group received a $30,000 grant from Microsoft Corporation for a study that will concentrate initially on educational technology projects under development at 50 leading universities.

Working in collaboration with Microsoft, the Learning Federation, and the Federation of American Scientists, ETRAC will develop a Web-accessible database that has an inventory of leading educational technology projects, researchers, and organizations. It also will report on emerging trends in educational technology, provide a valid baseline for research, and make recommendations for future research-and-development efforts.

“Before looking intently at information technology at Rice, we’d like to get a ‘big picture’ view of what’s going on at other universities to identify trends and problems,” says ETRAC director Lisa Spiro, who is also director of the Electronic Text Center at Fondren Library. “The ultimate goal is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the impact that information technology can have on a university. We can use that knowledge to guide the evolution of educational technology’s role in the university, to assist in the planning process, and to help teachers, researchers, and students use technology more effectively in their work and studies.”

For example, ETRAC hopes to consider the roles that technology plays in student life, evaluating students’ computer skills and comparing computer usage at residential colleges or dorms that have wireless access with those that don’t. ETRAC also will analyze the hardware, software, and information sources used by faculty in their research and how they disseminate their findings and use the library and information technology resources.

Eventually ETRAC will focus on applying its findings to the Rice campus. Faculty, researchers, and students will be surveyed to determine how they are using information technology, how they would like to use it, and what problems they have encountered here. “We propose making Rice University a laboratory for studying—and shaping—the information revolution in higher education,” Spiro says, adding that Rice’s small size, diversity, tradition of academic excellence, and commitment to exploring innovative applications of information technology lend themselves perfectly to such a study.

Ultimately, ETRAC will benefit educational institutions across the nation by providing a central point of access to research and tools that can be applied in evaluating and enhancing the academic uses of information technology. For more information about the project, see http://antioch.rice.edu/etrac/index.html.

—B. J. Almond